


Love Come Back

by BeepGrandCherokeeper



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Western, M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 05:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20558819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeepGrandCherokeeper/pseuds/BeepGrandCherokeeper
Summary: “You the banker?”Connor gave up on the hat, pulling it off his head and slicking his hair back with a hand. Even with the pomade he used daily, he worried about mussing it. “In a manner of speaking. My name is Connor Stern. I work for Mister Kamski of the Detroit Savings Bank, the man who telegramed you. He sent me along with all of the relevant paperwork.”Anderson moved away from the door, his porch creaking, the sound of heavy boots thudding their way toward him. “I never agreed to sign."





	Love Come Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DyingNoises](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyingNoises/gifts).

> For Noys @DyingNoyses on twitter!

“Mister Anderson!” Connor called, riding his horse through the open gate and onto the man’s property. The old-fashioned log cabin sat a ways back from the fence, surrounded by trees and shrubs growing with no particular order or reason. It looked like whoever built this place - probably one of Mister Anderson’s relations - had just looped a fence around a corner of the forest that used to take up most of the state. It was different now, though. This place had the biggest patch of untouched nature Connor had seen in a long time. He liked to see that, truthfully, but he knew his duties. His boss expected him back by the day after tomorrow with a signed contract, one that promised the bank that H. Anderson relinquished any rights to his land.

As he rode up the path, the sun sank to just the right angle so that it blinded him. He couldn’t see anything, even when he pulled down the brim of his rounded hat - but he heard a door open and slam shut, wood bouncing against wood. His horse nickered, coming to a slow stop he couldn’t tell where. Hoping she hadn’t set him near a ditch, Connor swung his leg over her back and dropped to the ground, still squinting.

“Mister Anderson?” he asked again, blinking against the lingering spots in his eyes.

A voice deeper than a canyon rumbled toward Connor, making him involuntarily straighten his back. That was a sinful sound. Connor would know - he’d had plenty of men with voices like that whisper in his ear, making promises they’d never keep. It didn’t matter, as long as they didn’t talk he didn’t care if they stayed, but he knew already that those memories would make this conversation difficult.

“You the banker?”

Connor gave up on the hat, pulling it off his head and slicking his hair back with a hand. Even with the pomade he used daily, he worried about mussing it. “In a manner of speaking. My name is Connor Stern. I work for Mister Kamski of the Detroit Savings Bank, the man who telegramed you.”

Anderson snorted. “Couldn’t bother to come along himself, could he?”

Connor squinted at the sky, taking a few steps forward until he stood in the shadow of the house, thrown by the setting sun. Relieved, he sighed. “Mister Kamski is a very busy man. He sent me along with all of the relevant paperwork.”

Anderson moved away from the door, his porch creaking, the sound of heavy boots thudding their way toward him.

“I never agreed to sign,” Anderson said, wrapping his hands around the railing and leaning down. It was the first proper look at him that Connor got, and it had the nasty side-effect of making him almost weak in the knees. He was like a mountain, taller still with Connor on the ground before him, and solid like he’d been carved from stone. His fingers were thick, hands like the blade of a shovel, and he was weathered, already gray and lined with fine wrinkles like delicately embossed leather.

Connor realized he’d been gaping far too late to go unnoticed. Snapping his mouth shut, which had dropped open sometime around when Connor noted the slight strain around Anderson’s buttons, he cleared his throat and prayed the heat in his cheeks could be blamed on the hot day.

“That’s all right,” Connor said, reaching into the satchel he kept on his shoulder. His traitorous hands trembled. “I’d be happy to walk you through your options again. I know Mister Kamski explained, but if there’s something you don’t understand—”

“He’s the one who doesn’t understand. I said I’d talk, but only so I could explain my intentions one last time. After this, I’m treating anybody from Kamski’s bank like a trespasser.”

Anderson came down the steps to meet Connor, standing across from him with his arms folded across an ample chest. They weren’t much different in height, Connor noticed, but he still seemed… very big. Like a bear, broad and shaggy.

His eyes were blue, so blue it hurt Connor to look anywhere else.

“Look, boy,” Anderson said, gruffly but not unkindly, “I’m not trying to scare you. My gripe’s with Kamski, not with a hired gun.”

Connor almost laughed. Obviously, Anderson had misconstrued his wandering eye - for the better, he was sure. No matter how much he liked the thought of those hands wrapping around his ankles, or the bulk of Anderson’s belly pressing between his legs.

“I just have no intention of selling.” Anderson gestured out toward his land. “All this - my grandfather bought the land, he built the cabin, he tilled the soil. My daddy helped build that fence. I buried my son beneath that tree.”

He winced when he said it, like he hadn’t meant to let that slip. Connor turned to look where he’d pointed, and sure enough, there was a wooden cross underneath a tree with low-hanging boughs, like a roof over a little mound of red dirt. It pushed his heart into his throat, and he felt a little guilty for thinking about Anderson the way he had done. The man before him wasn’t a rake with too much money to do him good, or an anonymous fuck tugging him upstairs at a seedy saloon. He was a man with a history, a livelihood, and a conscience, if he felt bad about “scaring” Connor.

Connor was sorry for the papers in his hand, too. He knew what would be coming, whether Anderson signed or not.

“Listen,” he said, stuffing them back into his satchel. “I understand. I wouldn’t want to give this place up, either.”

Anderson smiled, just a little. Connor could tell only by the way the shadow around his mouth changed. 

“You wouldn’t, huh? What would a city boy like you know about living out here?”

“Not much,” he said truthfully. “Born and raised in Detroit, myself. But I know something good when I see it.”

“Do you?” Anderson said.

This time, Connor was sure it was a rhetorical question. He still didn’t feel right, looking at Anderson like a piece of meat, but with the way Anderson’s eyebrow lifted, and the hint of gapped teeth behind a slightly wider grin? He couldn’t have answered, even if Anderson expected one.

“I’ve seen what Kamski does, Mister Anderson,” he said instead. “He pushes honest folks until they can’t take more, until they have no choice, and he’ll do that to you, too. You’re one of the last things standing between him and the development deal he’s trying to make.” Swallowing against a lump in his throat, against Anderson’s eyes boring holes into his, Connor shook his head. “He always gets what he wants.”

“Then I’ll have to be the exception to the rule,” Anderson said. “He can try whatever he likes. I won’t budge.”

Connor hoped that was true.

“I’ll tell him you said no,” Connor said, sticking out his hand. “I apologize for troubling you, Mister Anderson.”

Anderson shook, his palm rough against Connor’s smooth skin. “Hank,” he said. “Can’t say it was a pleasure, Mister Stern, but—”

“Please,” Connor said, squeezing Anderson’s hand. Maybe it was a bit too earnest, too much like revealing his intent, but it felt like the right thing to do. “Connor is fine.”

“Connor.”

Connor loved the sound of his name in Anderson’s mouth.

“When’re they expecting you to report back?”

Connor groaned, pulling his watch from his pocket. It was still early enough that he might make it back to the nearby settlement before dark, or, hell, he could get back to Detroit before midnight if his horse was up to the journey. He hated the thought of facing Kamski so soon.

“They gave me a few days to convince you. I was supposed to return with the signed papers in two days.”

Anderson stuffed his hands in his pockets. He looked up at the house, and then back at Connor, that funny little half-smile making another appearance. “Well, if they’re not anticipating a swift return, you could stay for dinner. No sense facing that music till you have to.”

Connor hummed. 

“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose there is.”

**Author's Note:**

> And then that night Connor and Hank have passionate sex and Connor never actually goes back to Kamski, the bank never gets Hank's land, and that old cabin is still standing there today, the end.


End file.
